Like a Knight In Shining Armor
by OnThatDizzyEdge
Summary: [Oneshot] Like a knight in shining armor, he'll always come to save her. Random fluff? RikkuxGippal


**Like a Knight In Shining Armor**

-A RikkuxGippal story-

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She sat perched on her bed, bathing in the mid-summer breeze. An acoustic guitar on her lap, she played the same chords over and over again. 

It never sounded quite right.

She threw her pick on the floor in frustration and continued to play with her bare fingers.

Her uncleaned room was all but forgotten from her thoughts. Three hours ago, Cid had sent her to her room to clean it...she'd gotten as far as her bed before her dusty, untouched guitar stroke her fancy. All around her bed lay the makings of projects she never finished, clothes with assorted smells from weeks of vegetation, half-read books full of promise of a good ending. Rikku had a habit as a young girl to get distracted before she finished what she started. It wasn't from the lack of determination, but the lack of interest. This time, she was going to finish. Even if it took her her whole life to remember that song.

Barely twelve years-old, she sat playing the same chord for two hours straight. Each time, improving upon it only slightly.

Her small fingers were raw and pink, on the brink of becoming ragged, open wounds.

Yet, she was relentless. Rikku was driven to finish, her whole being thrown into this one song, those few chords. Being driven was just something that worked for her. It made her stronger, the road that awaited her was more than enough to prove this. Her journeys would transform her, that was for sure, but now the spark of what was to come was surely evident in her now.

Now, though, all that mattered in the whole of Spira to her was that song.

She'd never played it, never recalled hearing it in song, and never was given the chords to play. It came naturally.

What she didn't realize in her concentrative state, that the song belonged to her mother. Every night until her untimely death, Rikku's mother sang that song to lull her little girl to sleep. Although her mother had come and passed, some things just stick with a person. Six long years later, the melody had stuck and was wanted.

So, while children's shrieks of joy and the warm summer breeze blew up to her, she sat playing a song that wouldn't come out right.

The sunlight streamed in the open window, hitting her golden blond hair in a perfect angle. She shined, but she hadn't meant it. Her green eyes were zoned in on her fingers, though she didn't see them at all. She hit a wrong chord and stopped, fair face scrunching in a mixture of irritation and determination. A drop of crimson red blood hit her tanned knee, but she took no notice as it slid and turned into a stain on her  
sun-yellow sheets. The offending finger hit the strings once more. She winced, but plowed on. A few muttered "ouchies" were all that she could manage in her daze.

She also took no notice of her audience.

He had been leaning against the door, completely immersed in her fortitude. He knew the song almost as well as she. He'd heard her humming it often, most of the time, she wasn't aware she had been humming at all. He never said a word about it, though. In their many childhood sleep-overs, occasionally Rikku would become restless as she tried in vain to sleep. Her mother would come almost intuitively and sing that song for her. At the time, he thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world, he knew better now.

He knew of the beauty in the song's player. He saw beauty in her unrelenting dedication. He saw beauty in the way she would frown, only slightly, as she started the song over again. He also saw her raw, blood-stained hands. He quietly snuck into the room and sat beside her, easing the guitar from her hands.

Her eyes flashed in surprise and she pulled away from him. In the silence, their eyes met, and she let her guard down. He softly pushed her hands from the strings and replaced them with his own. Strumming the correct chords, he easily played the song she'd been fighting so hard to find.

She rested her head on his shoulder, letting him play her lullaby. It hadn't needed to be spoken, he knew she was grateful. He knew she  
loved him for it. She didn't need to utter a word.

And, she didn't.

Like so many times before, he had arrived to save her right when she needed him. Like a knight in shining armor.

Her eyelids drooped heavily, the calming effects of her lullaby began to take their toll. Beside her, he began to fade and her mother took his place. The song echoed in her mind, then, it ceased completely. He effortlessly laid her across her bed and set her guitar on the floor. She subconsciously made herself comfortable, sighing in the process.

Gippal smiled as he kissed her forehead and slipped out of the room.

She dreamt of a ball in a grand ballroom. She and her mother twirled across the vacant dance floor for what seemed like an eternity. Her lullaby played softly in the background, then it grew into forte as her mother faded. It seemed like a glitch, Gippal's figure slowly taking over her mother's, but there he stood before Rikku in her dream. His thirteen year-old body was fully decked out in knight's attire.

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